Watermelon Rind Recipe

It’s basically summer time and during the summer I love to eat watermelon. Watermelon is so cool and refreshing, it’s hard to imagine it as a savory and spicy dish but my family has often used it as just that. We generate so much waste when eating watermelon due to the thick rind. What if I told you, you could save money and make meals out of your watermelons? Well you can!

I have never seen it anywhere else besides home so I know this might be a strange thing to do. The rind probably has tons of nutritional value we did not know about just like orange peels and most other fruit skins. Once cooked it is a crunchy squash-like texture and tastes amazing.

After you enjoy your watermelon, use a knife to skim off the pinkish parts, this is mostly to get rid of places where the biting made the rind uneven. If you decided to dice your watermelon, you can skip this part.

After skimming, carefully cut off the green skin until you are left with just the white and a bit of pink on your rind. You can then slice those rinds into very thin (<1 cm) pieces about 2 inches long. Height is variable based on how thick the rind was.

In a saute pan<(T-fal saute pan) heat the 2 tbsp of avocado oilwith your minced garlic. Once your garlic is slightly tan, add the watermelon rinds and chili crisp oils. Stir fry for 8 minutes or so or until the whites of the rind are slightly transparent. You may add the vegetable broth or water periodically to keep the rinds from charring. Let the rinds simmer for 5 minutes or so.

Mix-in the fish sauce or soy sauce and stir often. When the rind is mostly transparent, add the vinegar and mix well. You can add salt and pepper to taste. Let sit for another minute or so.

Usually I will make it slightly saltier and eat this with rice to dilute the salt. You can probably add it to noodles if you add more broth.

I just wanted to share one of the dishes my family makes with some unconventional ingredients. Comment below if you know of any weird things people don’t commonly eat as a delicacy. Thank you for reading and I hope you can enjoy this dish!

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